"Help Eberron *change* the campaigns I run"

This came from here.

Kamikaze Midget said:

So this is probably related to why I'm not into Eberron currently. It's easy to plunk down any character in Eberron. But it takes a lot of effort to inject Eberron into the characters. The same is true with plots and storylines. It's easy to plunk down a plot in Eberron. But how does it differ, in Eberron, from the plot done anywhere else? What does Eberron have to sell it?

I think that's a really good idea, and definitely could start approaching what is different about Eberron rather than how easily it can accommodate anything. It can easily accommodate everything, and that's good. Help me instead to take the feel that is Eberron's special product and put it into my game. Help Eberron *change* the campaigns I run.

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I think this is a very valid question. When I first started running an Eberron game I was a bit daunted. It -is- different, but it’s hard to get beyond the obvious stuff "Lightning rails are like trains! DnD doesn't have trains!!" to the deeper level. i.e. efficient and affordable transportation is available to PCs at lower levels, so the -characters- can choose where they want to go and the kinds of adventures they can have.

Two suggested ground rules.
There will be Eberron is so anime posts. Its unavoidable and has been rebutted a lot recently. Let’s try not to rise to the bait.

Try to share specific short examples of PCs/NPCs/plots from your games.
Stuff that would be particularly on topic: characters/plots that are driven by Dragonmarked Houses and/or specific countries (or their surrogates like the Twelve); evil aligned creatures being allies of a good aligned party/good aligned foes being at odds for ideological reasons; clerics of different alignments in the same church; demons/outsiders being "on plane"; barbarian "holy" warriors; conflicts between different "plains warrior” cultures.

Obviously some stuff that will come up may actually be shiftable into another campaign setting so it should be useful even for people who aren't running in Eb right now.

A big "Eberron influencing character" thing that was the driving force for my last character is this: Religion is a personal issue in Eberron. The gods, if they exist, tend to keep their nose out of things, and even the most active of them (The Silver Flame, Vol (If she's a god)) are distant at best.

I played a deserter from the Thrane army who had escaped to Sharn. A constant question for him was "Does my religion justify war? What is and isn't acceptable in terms of obedience to the Church? What deeds are acceptable in the fight against a greater evil, especially if they will result in suffering in the short run?"

Instead of having religions of "So, you're Alignment X and Race Y and from Region Z, so you follow God Q," religion in Eberron tends to make characters more introspective about their morality, rather than having any major affiliations with a church or diety.

Organizations. There are a ton of them that even first-level characters can belong to, and since most NPCs are between 1st and 4th level the PCs can start out with meaningful alleigances and alliances.

1) Five different druidic sects
2) Military service in a dozen or so nations
3) The major religions
4) A dozen dragonmarked houses
5) Three universities and a internationally distributed newspaper
6) class-specific guilds
7) A half-dozen criminal and terrorist organizations
etc... etc...

The trick is making the players aware of all these options before they create their PCs, but for someone who's read the ECS injecting some Eberron into your PC/NPC is easy.

Ben

fuindordm said:

Organizations. There are a ton of them that even first-level characters can belong to, and since most NPCs are between 1st and 4th level the PCs can start out with meaningful alleigances and alliances.

1) Five different druidic sects
2) Military service in a dozen or so nations
3) The major religions
4) A dozen dragonmarked houses
5) Three universities and a internationally distributed newspaper
6) class-specific guilds
7) A half-dozen criminal and terrorist organizations
etc... etc...

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Organizations and the gray morality that a lot of NPCs have make for a different feel than your "typical" D&D game. PCs almost never can tell where an NPC stands and this makes for a more interesting type of interaction. Eberron truly does have a "film noir" feel to it...

Good Charakters that use evil means and evil charakters that have good goals can greatly increase the "gray area"ness of a campaign.
My current PC is a redeement Mage for hire Villain, that still usesNekromancy spells and prefers to deal with his opponents per assassination. Another charakter concept was a Vol follower in Sharn that work to improve his religions image, doing good deeds, but using the powers of death and undeath.
The other extreme of this spectrum was my last BBEG: She was a secret agent of Karnath that desertet and created a huge evil plot that would kill many Karnathi, create a civil war and make her the ruler of Karnath, working with powerfull Daelkyr artifacts and a Yugloth army. But she didn't do this because she lustet for power, but to crush Vols power in Karnath and because she thought of herself as the only person to rule Karnath to its best.

IMC the players have become involved with the the growing tensions between Darguun and Breland. Neither nation officially wants to start yet another war, but extremist forces on both sides are pushing their own agenda.

A particular Eberron twist is that the players ( 3 Brelanders, 1 Cyran and 1 Thranian) will end up helping the hobgoblins of Darguun in their assault on the mansion of a Breland nobleman and member of Parlaiment. They had better find the proof of this nobles activities or they will end up with their faces plastered on a copy of "Breland's Most Wanted".

Eberron's history and lack of D&D's classic alignment paradigm allow for some very interesting story twists.

Plots and storylines that are uniquely Eberron? There's a strong vibe that although the Last War just ended, there's a lot of tension, and the next big Fantasy World War is imminent. The lead-in to a war that will involve practically the entire continent (and possibly other areas as well) is a pretty unique plotline.

I think it helps to look at the themes that can be drawn from Eberron, rather than the details. I don't know the setting that well, but I've read it, so hopefully this is somewhat relevant.

Eberron feels kinda Hemingway combined with '30s pulp fiction to me. WWI is over, the shellshocked soldiers are trying to get on with their lives. There's a sense of hope and wonder, that the tools of war can be used for something else, to build up civilization, uncover ancient wonders, make the world a better place. But there's a WWII brewing on the horizon, which provides a strong counterpoint.

So: Wonder, hope, loss, fear. Tension between the hope that we can make the world a better place and the fear that we're just going to end up fighting over the same old things. Loss suffered during the war, wonder of the new things we can discover. That sounds like it'd be a pretty interesting campaign.

(And I just can't get the idea of a Warforged that acts like a Hemingway character out of my head. )

SweeneyTodd said:

(And I just can't get the idea of a Warforged that acts like a Hemingway character out of my head. )

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Funny I had the same thought. My current Warforged Cleric character is somewhat inspired by the character Fred Henry from Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms ; a former soldier, disillusioned with and really quite stunned by the impact of the War, who has found in religion some measure of sanity. I still remember the line from the novel "It is in defeat we become Christian." He has seen enough of blood and destruction to last a lifetime. He's quite passive, but values strength and solidarity with fellow sentients. Currently he helps to maintain a decrepit church in the Fallen district of Sharn and just started a goblin outreach program in the Mud Caves...

Ar'Salan said:

Currently he helps to maintain a decrepit church in the Fallen district of Sharn and just started a goblin outreach program in the Mud Caves...

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Cool Idea! If I ever run a campaign, I'll have to throw something like that in there!